Audacity of Truth
Rahmbo:
"Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil's spawn. He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive."
-Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) on Obama's COS, 3/7/10
Velvet Lair- Legends March 18, 2010
- Some things are just not cute March 18, 2010
- The adventures of the lady spider killer continue March 11, 2010
- Intermission February 19, 2010
- People who allow their dogs to poop in other people’s yards February 16, 2010
Obama MIA on Afghanistan – again
Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal has a lengthy, informative report on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, and about how General Stanley McChrystal has reportedly threatened to resign if President Obama and the Pentagon do not act quickly to approve his request for more troops for an Iraq-like surge (via Memeo):
For Afghanistan, the process to decide on a course change began in March of this year, when Bruce Reidel was tasked to assess the situation. This produced the much-heralded yet vague “AfPak” assessment. Then, in May, General David McKiernan was fired and replaced by General McChrystal, who took command in June. General McChrystal’s assessment hit President Obama’s desk at the end of August, almost three months after he took command. And yet now in the last half of September, the decision on additional forces has yet to be submitted to the administration.
Contrast this with Iraq in the fall of 2006. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was fired just one day after the elections in early November. The Keane-Kagan plan for Iraq was submitted to President Bush shortly afterward, and encompassed both the assessment of the situation and the recommended course of action, including the recommended number of troops to be deployed to deal with the situation. General David Petraeus replaced General George Casey in early February 2007, and hit the ground running; the surge strategy was in place, troops were being mustered to deploy to Iraq, and commanders on the ground were preparing for and executing the new orders. The first of the surge units began to arrive in Iraq only weeks later, in March.
Today, the military is perceiving that the administration is punting the question of a troop increase in Afghanistan, and the military is even questioning the administration’s commitment to succeed in Afghanistan. The leaking of the assessment and the report that McChrystal would resign if he is not given what is needed to succeed constitute some very public pushback against the administration’s waffling on Afghanistan.
How reassuring it must have been for our men and women in harm’s way in Afghanistan to read/hear/watch about how – in the midst of the declining state of affairs there – our President, their CIC, appeared on David Letterman last night to talk about, in addition to ObamaCare, the fact that he was “black before the election.” How comforting I’m sure it was this morning for them to read and/or hear/watch our President, their CIC, speak so boldly at the UN on the need for American to be “determined to act” on climate change.
But on the issue of Afghanistan? I hear what you hear: Crickets chirping.
Uncle Jimbo rants:
He was sent to Afghanistan to command and win. He needs more troops to do that, which everyone knows. He is getting slow-rolled as the White House sniffs the political breezes. President Obama talked a big game on the campaign trail and in March announced his new strategy. Now that he has gotten beaten up over all his big government plans, he is tap dancing on Afghanistan. He has had McChrystal’s report for more than three weeks and reportedly has held only one meeting about it.
President Obama: MIA on the issue of Afghanistan as both a Senator and Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on European Affairs, and MIA on the issue as President and CIC, in spite of his promises both last year and this year that Afghanistan was where we needed to “refocus and re-engage.”
This is what happens when you have a President who believes in appeasing rather than winning.
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Obamessiah is DEFINITELY in over his head!!!!!
Obama has become the hated cousin you had to play with when you were a child. Everytime he showed up he would throw your toys all over the yard and then leave you to pick them all up.
Now he has taken his show on the road and soon the rest of the world will want to kick his ass too!
OOPS! Too late,they already want to kick his ass.
Obama will let Afghanistan sink deeper and deeper into oblivion while the American public turns against it.
Then he will withdraw from Afghanistan saying it was “the will of the people”!!!
He’s still campaigning and we’re all going to pay the price.
Duh-1 is MIA in his presidency, too, and keeping his oath to “uphold the Constitution”. But let’s not split hairs here. At least he’s on the boob tube 24/7. That surely has to count for something (and don’t call me Shirley?).
Well whatever he does there are boys over there trying to stay alive and trying not to get hurt. God Bless them all
Obama’s first instinct whenever it gets tough is to tack left. That hasn’t worked so far, but it won’t stop him – I don’t believe he has ever in his life examined his basic assumptions. So he goes left, it gets worse, he doubles down and has his bully boys start making threats, it gets worse some more, and he locks up, incapable of understanding how all of the adoring mulitudes suddenly became sheet wearing racists. Then he goes back to first principles, brings out the Majestic Obama Travelling Road Show, hits the policy wonk shows, does a few carefully staged and scripted meetings, delivers a handful of speeches restating the same platitudes he’s used since first appearing on the national scene, and… then what?
We haven’t gotten far enough to see what happens when he finds himself facing a brick wall and every time he turns left he’s in another corner. I don’t think he has another tactic up his sleeve. We’re beginning to see the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of this man and his venal, corrupt handlers and enablers. And sadly, we’re all going to pay big for this.
Okay, [shrug] we voted for this.
Afghanistan is a complicated place that has been further messed up by the pakistani establishment (Army & ISI). They feel afghanistan is their backyard and America has no role there.
Obama and pakistan are like a compulsive gambler and the accomlished shyster. he keeps putting in billions of $ and they keep on cheating.
In order to be successful in the afpak region it is important that he listens to the men on the ground instead of wasting the taxpayers money on free aid (bribes?). His delay in putting resources in the region is going to cost more and more american lives. I fail to understand why the obama administration feels they cannot win in afghnaistan. All that is needed is a clear focus and a determined push towards the root of the problem – pakistan army and its ISI which keeps the taliban in one pocket and american aid in the other.
these billions of dollars paid as bribes should have been used in america itself to create more jobs and opportunities the citizens this period of economic downturn.
Has anyone else noticed O’s use of fear as a political tool to push through his radical agenda? These are the same people who bashed President Bush when he talked about serious and deadly situations we face from terrorists. Unreal.
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